We landed at Heathrow around 0430 hours, as always when the weather is not unusual, the London sun shone half as bright as it would have done in Madras at the same time. Silence gripped the aircraft except for the footsteps of some passengers hurrying to get down first and start haggling with the cabs in the morning. Some passengers also rushed to change airports from Heathrow and Gatwick terminal. Fortunately for me, I was to take the connecting flight from the same terminal. After settling down in the lounge we saw that there were just 7-8 guys in our group and we were destined to spend the next 7 hours at this same terminal.
It is difficult to say offhand of what ought to be the aspect in which one should look at 0430 hours. I have never seen this part of the day except on Deepavali day every year. Should I be pleasant looking, or somewhat ordinary face or else the seemingly dazed look on my face? Nevertheless of the looks, which I don’t bother, I decided to brush my teeth before making a dive into the breakfast which my mother had packed for us. My friend decided to act fast and decided to brush first and I was left guarding the luggage. My friend returned after quiet some time (I was thinking if he was brushing just his teeth or else brushing the teeth of all others in the restroom.) with a huge grin on his face. The grin represented as if he had achieved in doing some Herculean task and that deserved rather a big applause. He then took the rather simple job of watching the luggage, which for now was very important since it had all the food.
I should have known better not to trust my friend’s direction. He is one of those guys who believed in the proverb "All Roads lead to Rome". He pointed his finger with authority at a place, which I assumed was the restroom. It took me the next 15 minutes with the help of the information center to locate the restroom. The funny part was that I was given a Map without the important information, the RED mark that states "You are here". Then with my navigation skills I finally reached the restroom. I did not know for sure if my friend had concealed from me the correct directions or perhaps the morning was a bit slack for him that he grabbed the opportunity to have me run around looking for places which was right under my nose.
Inside the restroom I stood helplessly looking at the mirror, with the brush loaded with toothpaste in my mouth while the dumb tap wouldn’t let flow the water. My exasperation became too much for my friend. If had any lethal weapon than a small brush and a tooth paste, I would have thrown it at him for concealing all the intricate details that I should have known before entering this room. It looked like even Kaveri water would flow into Madras but this single tap wouldn’t. All it did was just pouring hot air. I was immobilised with the paste in my mouth and hence was waiting for someone to rescue me.
Then a huge built guy walked in with a bang as if he was Samson and somebody was trying to cut his hair. He went straight to the tap and put is hand under the tap and the dumb tap as I called it worked fine. It seemed as if that Niagara Falls had been transported to this place. Then did I realise that the English way of taps with two unwanted knobs on top of the basin while all it needed was a hand underneath the tap to make it work. My emotions upon seeing my friend was like a lover who had planned to lunch with the girl he adored and later it turns to be her father waiting at the restaurant. On the site of me walking towards him, he took up like a horse participating in the two thirty race and fled from the scene. One point that I wish to make here is that it was not a very attractive horse but this time it was a crowd favorite.
One of the things that rendered my task so arduous was the fact that he has a physical advantage over me in running short distances. Of course, in games where the mind comes to play I was a clean winner. Hence a compromise was made that we decided to share the breakfast. According to the compromise, it was a fair event i.e. 60% for me and 40% for him. As austere friend would have not agreed to this but since my friend is one who proves that mighty brain is no match for nimble brawn, this deal looked fair in his eyes. The breakfast was Idlis with chutney. It seemed like this was probably the last best known breakfast that we were going to have for quiet some time to come. We never had experimented with the art of cuisine till date. I would say that my cooking is not graded as an environmental hazard but is palatable at times.
With too much of Idlies, our throat dried out and we were all looking like parched cactus on the lookout for a water hole in a desert. Bang! From one of the friends bag came a Coca-Cola can. It looked like as if he was Aladdin with his magic lamp. We shared the drink; of course this time it was even a fairer deal than before, 50% each. The main point here is that unless your destination, the COKE can, is within the range of your hands we should try to get the vantage position as quickly as possible else you loose in these type of games. Just at the end of the coke-can round, Aladdin took another can out of the bag.
This needed some looking into the magic behind this and we found it by directly confronting him. He said that his seniors had advised him to stack up his hand luggage with coke cans from the previous flight so that we don’t look like parched cactus in the desert. With this answer, he started to raise his collar thinking high of himself, astute to be precise. He then proceeded to ask me if I didn’t get to do this act. This was a situation that had my ego at stake and hence squeezing my brain, which seldom works, gave back a fitting reply saying that there would be some dumb bloke who would stack his bag and that I could share it with him – so why bother?.
It is difficult to say offhand of what ought to be the aspect in which one should look at 0430 hours. I have never seen this part of the day except on Deepavali day every year. Should I be pleasant looking, or somewhat ordinary face or else the seemingly dazed look on my face? Nevertheless of the looks, which I don’t bother, I decided to brush my teeth before making a dive into the breakfast which my mother had packed for us. My friend decided to act fast and decided to brush first and I was left guarding the luggage. My friend returned after quiet some time (I was thinking if he was brushing just his teeth or else brushing the teeth of all others in the restroom.) with a huge grin on his face. The grin represented as if he had achieved in doing some Herculean task and that deserved rather a big applause. He then took the rather simple job of watching the luggage, which for now was very important since it had all the food.
I should have known better not to trust my friend’s direction. He is one of those guys who believed in the proverb "All Roads lead to Rome". He pointed his finger with authority at a place, which I assumed was the restroom. It took me the next 15 minutes with the help of the information center to locate the restroom. The funny part was that I was given a Map without the important information, the RED mark that states "You are here". Then with my navigation skills I finally reached the restroom. I did not know for sure if my friend had concealed from me the correct directions or perhaps the morning was a bit slack for him that he grabbed the opportunity to have me run around looking for places which was right under my nose.
Inside the restroom I stood helplessly looking at the mirror, with the brush loaded with toothpaste in my mouth while the dumb tap wouldn’t let flow the water. My exasperation became too much for my friend. If had any lethal weapon than a small brush and a tooth paste, I would have thrown it at him for concealing all the intricate details that I should have known before entering this room. It looked like even Kaveri water would flow into Madras but this single tap wouldn’t. All it did was just pouring hot air. I was immobilised with the paste in my mouth and hence was waiting for someone to rescue me.
Then a huge built guy walked in with a bang as if he was Samson and somebody was trying to cut his hair. He went straight to the tap and put is hand under the tap and the dumb tap as I called it worked fine. It seemed as if that Niagara Falls had been transported to this place. Then did I realise that the English way of taps with two unwanted knobs on top of the basin while all it needed was a hand underneath the tap to make it work. My emotions upon seeing my friend was like a lover who had planned to lunch with the girl he adored and later it turns to be her father waiting at the restaurant. On the site of me walking towards him, he took up like a horse participating in the two thirty race and fled from the scene. One point that I wish to make here is that it was not a very attractive horse but this time it was a crowd favorite.
One of the things that rendered my task so arduous was the fact that he has a physical advantage over me in running short distances. Of course, in games where the mind comes to play I was a clean winner. Hence a compromise was made that we decided to share the breakfast. According to the compromise, it was a fair event i.e. 60% for me and 40% for him. As austere friend would have not agreed to this but since my friend is one who proves that mighty brain is no match for nimble brawn, this deal looked fair in his eyes. The breakfast was Idlis with chutney. It seemed like this was probably the last best known breakfast that we were going to have for quiet some time to come. We never had experimented with the art of cuisine till date. I would say that my cooking is not graded as an environmental hazard but is palatable at times.
With too much of Idlies, our throat dried out and we were all looking like parched cactus on the lookout for a water hole in a desert. Bang! From one of the friends bag came a Coca-Cola can. It looked like as if he was Aladdin with his magic lamp. We shared the drink; of course this time it was even a fairer deal than before, 50% each. The main point here is that unless your destination, the COKE can, is within the range of your hands we should try to get the vantage position as quickly as possible else you loose in these type of games. Just at the end of the coke-can round, Aladdin took another can out of the bag.
This needed some looking into the magic behind this and we found it by directly confronting him. He said that his seniors had advised him to stack up his hand luggage with coke cans from the previous flight so that we don’t look like parched cactus in the desert. With this answer, he started to raise his collar thinking high of himself, astute to be precise. He then proceeded to ask me if I didn’t get to do this act. This was a situation that had my ego at stake and hence squeezing my brain, which seldom works, gave back a fitting reply saying that there would be some dumb bloke who would stack his bag and that I could share it with him – so why bother?.
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